[gambiting]

What you're not taking into the account is the standard of living though. This is totally how some rural communities in Poland worked not that long ago, and you could also say "but hey, Poland is fairly compact, you could drive from the village X to a larger city which has stores in like 30 minutes, what's the deal?", forgetting that for a long time the only vehicle in a village might have been an agricultural tractor, a lot of "daily business" travelling was still done with a horse and a cart. Besides, those rural communities had staples produced locally - my auntie always had a cellar filled to the brim with potatoes, milk from a cow, eggs from chickens, they'd butcher a pig from time to time so a freezer was usually full of meat, local bakery would get a delivery of flour from elsewhere. It's just that "hopping over to a town nearby for shopping" wasn't really an option until mid-90s at least, when the market got absolutely flooded with cheap cars and people found the ability to afford them.

[Scoundreller]

I asked my mom if/where they got yeast in the 50s and 60s, and she said that once a week, a lady would arrive on horse/donkey and trade everyone for their eggs.

They probably had a train connection link somewhere that went to/from a big city and that’s how it all worked.

They had milk and pork, but generally sold/traded that for everything else they needed: oil, salt, sugar, etc. And of course some monetary savings for their escape!